


the house that dripped blood

by addandsubtract



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Horror, M/M, Mental Instability, Pre-Slash, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-15
Updated: 2007-09-15
Packaged: 2018-01-16 12:08:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1346905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/addandsubtract/pseuds/addandsubtract
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“When do we leave?” Mikey asks, and Gerard steps back.</p><p>“Two weeks,” he says, and Mikey sees flashes of empty hallways and open doors as Gerard pulls his fingers away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the house that dripped blood

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for the [reel_band](http://reel-band.livejournal.com/) challenge in 2007, and is a fusion with _the shining_.

Mikey knows it’s a bad idea before Gerard even starts talking. He sees the squint in the corners of Gerard’s eyes, the twitch of his white fingers against the tabletop, the point of his tongue in the corner of his mouth like he only does when he’s concentrating on drawing or on thinking up plans he hopes and hopes will work but never do.

Mikey also knows that, whatever it is, he’s already agreed to it. He slumps down in the kitchen chair and waits for Gerard to start talking, but he already knows that he’ll say yes. He knows it like he knew in the fourth grade that Marty Hopkins, the class bully, spent nights covering his ears while his parents screamed at each other in the next room. He got shoved in more than one locker for saying it out loud, too.

He knows it like he always knew their father was drunk before he even slammed the car door shut, and like he knew that when Gerard went away to New York, he’d be back before Christmas. Sometimes, though, it’s better not to say these things out loud.

“So,” Gerard says, “I got this job.” He stops, and Mikey shrugs, sunk so far down that his neck is propped up on the back of the chair. “I mean, I have to go up for the interview, but Ray, the guy I spoke to on the phone, said that he was pretty sure they’d hire me either way, and that the interview was just a formality. Making sure I’m not a total crazy, I guess.” Gerard laughs a little at that, his fingers tap-tapping on the faded enamel of the kitchen table.

“Gee, wait a sec, back up,” Mikey says, sitting up a little. He scrubs a hand through his hair and pushes his glasses up on his nose. “Got what job where?”

“It sounds so _cool_ , Mikey,” Gerard says, and Mikey is pretty sure from Gerard’s tone of voice that he knows Mikey isn’t going to like it. “It’s this job in this old hotel in middle of nowhere Colorado. The Overlook, or something like that. Anyway, they close the hotel down during the winter, right? So they’re hiring me to be the fucking caretaker. It’s like, five months of living in this lush hotel for good pay, and plus, you can come and keep me company. Bob, who works in books with me, used to, like, go to school or something with Ray, and he hooked me up. Really fucking cool, right?” The smile that spreads across Gerard’s face is the kind that Mikey _still_ doesn’t know how to say no to, not even after Gerard got wasted in his basement every night for a month after he got back from New York. Not even then.

And now isn’t even close to as bad as that was. Mikey sighs.

“Really fucking cool, Gee,” he says, and smiles. Gerard nudges Mikey’s calf under the table with the toes of his bare foot, and Mikey ignores the dread he felt at the mention of that name. The Overlook.

 

+

 

When Mikey startles awake in the middle of the night, he knows he’s been dreaming from the copper and acid taste in the back of his mouth. The only thing he can remember is the image of bloodied fingers leaving red clotted streaks against the green enamel of a bathtub he’s never seen before. That, and the white of snow piled so high he could barely see over it, swirling thick to land on the frozen ground.

 

+

 

Gerard comes back from the interview with a grin on his face so wide that Mikey knows he’s been driving for too long, that he’s tired and probably hasn’t slept, that he got the job. He doesn’t need any flash to know it, either. He can tell just from Gerard’s expression, stretched thin against his white teeth – half-crazed and just a bit skeletal. Gerard opens the door and pushes the screen with his elbow and wraps his arms around the backs of Mikey’s shoulders, fingers digging into Mikey’s shoulder blades hard enough to hurt.

“When do we leave?” Mikey asks, and Gerard steps back.

“Two weeks,” he says, and Mikey sees flashes of empty hallways and open doors as Gerard pulls his fingers away.

 

+

 

The first thing Mikey thinks about Ray is that he actually looks _nice_. It’s something about his hair and how natural the smile looks on his face. Ray is sitting behind the desk in his office, the suit clashing with his big ‘fro. Gerard takes a seat, but Mikey would much rather stay standing. They drove for eight hours straight to get here on closing day, and Mikey is left feeling antsy and anxious – Gerard spent the whole time curled up on his seat, talking about how _good_ it was going to be, how _good_ , and Mikey doesn’t think he’ll ever understand how that is actually possible. He shifts from one foot to the other, and Ray smiles when he notices.

“You can wander around if you want. Fair warning, though, it’s pretty easy to get lost, at least at first. If you need to find your way back, just ask anybody in a staff uniform, they’ll be able to help you.”

Gerard turns around and smiles, giving Mikey a half-wave. “Yeah, Mikey, no need to bore you with the details. I’ll catch up with you later.” Mikey looks at Gerard for a moment, trying to gauge how much he’s lying, but if he is, it’s not enough to matter, so Mikey just shrugs.

 

+

 

Mikey’s feet find the kitchen like they know the way, down long, winding corridors and twisted hallways, one flight of stairs and through a set of double doors. It’s all bright shiny metal, wiped down and cleaned off, sparkling in the bright florescent lighting, and Mikey can’t help but run his fingers over the cool countertops, the sound of his footsteps loud against the linoleum.

“You’re Mikey Way,” a voice says behind him, deep and amused, and Mikey can see him in a _flash_ before he even starts to look, pale skin and tattoos all up and down his arms, across his chest and stomach, smile like he’s laughing at something Mikey doesn’t quite understand.

“Frankie,” Mikey says, before shaking his head, shaking it off and turning toward the voice. “Frank Iero, I mean. Hi.” Frank smiles and sketches a wave. Mikey looks at the tattoos peeking up from the collar of his white chef uniform, black ink on his wrists when he bends his arms, shirt sleeves rolled up. He knows where each stops and the next starts, a blueprint across his eyelids. 

“You’re better than I am,” Frank says, casually leaning back against the counter, elbows on the top. “Much better, I think.” Mikey shrugs fluidly and scuffs his toe against the floor, images in his head of little Frankie Iero talking to his grandmother with his mouth closed, her voice a smile saying _shh, it’s our little secret, sweetie, ours_.

“You know more about it, though,” is all he says. Too much a habit to keep it quiet. Frank just shrugs.

“Shining?” Frank says, “Well, maybe. Not much to know, really. Some things you see and some you don’t.” He pauses for a moment, and his grin widens, turning wicked and sharp. “So, tell me what you know about me, Mikey Way.”

Mikey frowns, but Frank just motions him on, and Mikey doesn’t really _know_ Frank, but it feels a little like he does, the way he can see right into his head and know things that he might not even know about Gerard.

“You’re the head Chef here,” he starts, closing his eyes to let the words come faster. “They let you cook because you’re really fucking good and you’re ballsy enough to change it up without asking for permission. They let the tattoo thing slide, just avoid sending you out to talk to guests. Your first girlfriend’s name was, um. Susanne. Susan, something like that. You called her Susie. She’s already got two kids – Anthony and Jessica. Um. You don’t like the cold, and you’re – scared of room 237.” Mikey opens his eyes. “What’s in room 237?” Frank is silent for long enough that Mikey thinks he might not talk at all, but then he shrugs his shoulders like he’s saying _fuck it, whatever_.

“Have you ever been in a place where someone’s died? Like, were murdered, or killed themselves, or whatever?” Mikey has, but only once, and he was only thirteen then, and hadn’t really understood what was happening, not until the cold fingers wrapped around his neck, thumbs pressing against the hollow of his throat. He nods. “Well, this hotel is old, around a hundred years old, and a lot of bad things have happened here, I guess. Room 237 is just one of those places.” Mikey’s not sure what to say to that, so he just nods again.

He wants to ask Frank, _is this place bad?_ , really wants to, but he’s far too fucking cowardly to want the actual answer. 

 

+

 

“Your brother,” Frank starts, standing over a gallon tub of vanilla ice cream, scoop in one hand, two bowls on the table, “is he okay?”

“What do you mean?” Mikey asks, eyes narrowing defensively behind his glasses. Frank just shrugs.

“Don’t know, really. Just. Is he?” Mikey tries to find something sly in Frank’s face, something underhanded, but he sees nothing but earnest worry and a tinge of confusion. 

“Well, what kind of person thinks it’s a _good_ idea to spend five months isolated on a mountain?” Mikey asks. He’s thinking of Gerard passed out on the floor of Mikey’s living room, Gerard holed up in his room for five days working his way through an entire sketchbook, Gerard at their Grandmother’s funeral.

“I see,” Frank says, and Mikey wonders how much of that he saw.

 

+

 

Frank turns to Mikey as he’s about to leave, bowls of ice cream empty on the counter, and Mikey pauses, waiting.

“Look,” Frank says, “mostly, nothing much happens here. But being trapped in a place like this for five months and no way out does some weird things to people, so.” He sighs like he doesn’t want to have to say it, and Mikey is pretty sure he knows, anyway, what Frank is going to say, but he wants to hear it out loud. “Just, if you need anything, give me a ring, okay? Even if the phones don’t work.”

Mikey smiles, and waves, leaving Frank alone in his kitchen.

 

\+ 

 

The ballroom is all gaudy gold leaf and mirrored walls, immense and frivolously expensive looking. Mikey wanders in from the hallway, following his feet. He hears his footsteps echo, and stops just inside the doorway. The bar across the room is empty, packed and cornered away, and the chairs are stacked against the far wall, neat, and dusted, and lifeless. Mikey breathes out slowly and turns in a careful circle, thinking of ball gowns and tuxedos, twenties flapper fringe and slicked back hair.

 _Mikey_ , he almost hears, almost. _Mikey, look at us_.

 _Look at us, Mikey_. Two voices. Two. Behind him.

Mikey stops spinning. He cocks his head to the side, listening, and feels the shiver of air against the back of his neck, goose pimples on his arms. Fingers trailing over his skin, digging into him, pulling at his shirt.

_Look at us!_

Mikey catches a glimpse of two faces reflected against in the smooth metallic walls in front of him, hand prints in clotted blood, brownish-red, carefully pressed to glass, but –

“Mikey?”

– when he turns, gasp trapped in his throat, Gerard is in the doorway with Ray, and Mikey feels like an idiot, half-crazy, but he knows he is neither.

“Mikey? You okay?” Gerard’s eyebrows are furrowed, and Mikey wonders just how pale he is, how frightened he looks.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” His voice is slightly huskier than usual, and just a tad too loud.

Gerard eyes him skeptically, but Mikey is used to being quiet, and besides, who’d believe him, anyway.

 

+

 

“There’s one thing you should probably know, before we finalize things,” Ray says with an apologetic shrug, slumped behind his desk. Mikey is mostly looking out the window, only half listening to the conversation. The chairs in the Ray’s office are over-stuffed and comfortable, and he’s happy just leaving the details to Gerard seated next to him, and think about fingerprints outlined in blood, and grinning faces in the mirror.

“What’s that?” Gerard asks. Mikey can feel Gerard glance at him, still half-overprotective, the way he is.

“Well – hm. It’s gets cold up here – snows enough that the phone lines go out every winter, and normally don’t get fixed until the season starts up again. So, here’s the thing. We’ve had problems in the past with people in your position. The isolation gets to them and – things can get ugly. It’s only gotten really bad once – you may have heard about it? A few years back? A kid named Jon Walker and two of his friends came up here to take care of the place, and. Lets just put it this way – Walker chopped his two friends up with an axe, walked into the Presidential Suite, and shot himself in the head.” Ray’s smile is still apologetic, saying, _hey, what can you do? These things happen_.

“That’s –” Gerard starts, and Mikey looks up at him, the smile he pastes on his face that Mikey knows is only half fake. “I don’t think that’ll be a problem for us.” Mikey knows where to listen, and there’s something of morbid curiosity in the back of Gerard’s throat, a touch of anticipation. Mikey won’t be surprised if he finds Gerard in the Presidential Suite, drawing what he thinks it should look like – the empty eyes, blood and brain matter and bits of bone splattered against the floral wallpaper. He half-smiles and looks out the window.

“Do you happen to know the names of his friends?” Mikey asks before he can stop himself, thinking of the voices behind him, wondering if naming them will help, maybe. It probably won’t.

“Um,” Ray says, shifting through the files on his desk. Eventually, he comes up with a slip of paper tucked in the back of some enormously huge file, and he glances up with a smile. “It says here their names were Brendon Urie and Spencer Smith.”

Gerard is looking at Mikey again, but Mikey doesn’t try to decode his expression. Too much effort.

“Thanks,” he says.

 

+

 

“I can’t believe there’s no alcohol in this whole place,” Gerard says, hauling sweaters and jeans out of his suitcase and stuffing them in the bottom drawer of his wardrobe. Mikey just snorts and continues to fold his t-shirts, knowing this is probably the last time he’ll bother until he has to pack up again. “Okay, so, yeah, it’s probably for the best that they clean this place out, not to mention less expensive, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do a little complaining.” There’s a false note in Gerard’s voice, but Mikey isn’t sure why or what it pertains to, a sharpness that could be as much on topic as not.

Mikey glances up to find Gerard looking at him, a hoodie in one hand and a thoughtful expression on his face. He raises his eyebrows, finishes folding the shirt without looking, and waits for Gerard to start talking again. Gerard bites his tongue and looks back down at the black hoodie in his hands, left over from high school, the one year of overlap where Mikey could sit with him at lunch and neither of them were lonely.

“What did you see in the ballroom, Mikey?” Mikey is expecting the change in the tone in Gerard’s voice, but isn’t quite ready for it. He picks up another t-shirt, folding it and thinking about the scrape of fingernails on gold-leafed walls.

“Does it matter?” he asks, even though he knows the answer. Gerard thinks about how he can save people he’s never met – there’s no way that Mikey is at all exempt. Gerard doesn’t even bother responding to the question, just abandons his suitcase and wanders across the room to the half-kitchen to make coffee, glancing over his shoulder as he spoons out grounds. “Dead people,” Mikey says. “Handprints in blood. Words, maybe. Voices whispering to me, my name.” Mikey shrugs, like it’s something he’s seen before, and it sort of is – the voices are new, but the blood is not.

“Hm,” Gerard says, thoughtful, while the coffee machine percolates. 

“Grab your sketchpad,” Mikey says, folding his last shirt and putting the stack in the second drawer from the top, “and I’ll tell you about it.”

 

+

 

The first few weeks, Mikey sticks close to Gerard, sitting with a book in the bedroom, listening to the scratch of Gerard’s pen on paper. Leaning against the side entrance by the garage while Gerard smokes. The air smells like winter on its way, sharp and edged in Mikey’s lungs as he breathes in, the chafe of wind on his fingers. He stuffs them in the front pocket of his sweatshirt.

“Did you know mob guys used to come up here?” he asks, staring at the driveway that winds down the mountain, one route in, one route out.

“Mm?” Gerard’s noise is half-surprised and half-curious and he glances over, his cheeks hollowed out as he breathes in cigarette smoke.

“Yep,” Mikey says.

“Should I ask how you know?” Gerard asks, smoke escaping his mouth as he talks, swirling in white trails around his head, his sunglasses pushed up into his hair. Mikey shrugs. “C’mon, Mikey, you can’t say something like that without further elaboration.”

“They shot someone in the honeymoon suite,” Mikey says lifting one shoulder out of indifference. Gerard raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, like. An execution thing. Brains on the walls, bits of skull. It made the papers.” There’d been a splatter of blood and flecks of gray when he’d walked in, all across the horribly gaudy wallpaper, a newspaper soaking in a puddle of congealed red, proclaiming the headline in large letters. Dead like a picture in a book, and when Mikey had moved to brush his hands over the stained wall, he’d just felt the smooth of paper.

“And people wonder why I’m so morbid,” Gerard mutters, sucking on the end of his cigarette again.

“You’d be morbid anyway,” Mikey says, “I just help.”

 

+

 

There’s a snowmobile out in the garage, and Mikey can’t help but check periodically, making sure that it’s still there with all parts intact. He knows that it’s nothing he can control, really, but something about having a way out goes a long way toward giving him piece of mind.

Standing in the dusty garage with his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie, Mikey wonders how long they have until it starts snowing.

 

+

 

The third week, Gerard holes up in the first floor study with all of his art supplies.

“You’ll see when I’m done,” he says when Mikey asks, closing the door with more force than strictly necessary. Mikey is used to his moods, the bursts of frenzied inspiration, and so he wanders the hotel by himself for the first time since the staff left. He avoids the ballroom, leaves the second floor altogether, and doesn’t dare go near any of the suites.

The kitchen holds impressions of Frank, whispers of him yelling _don’t over-salt the soup, dumbass_ , to his colleagues, bouncing on his toes as he pours sauce on a steak, standing in the walk in freezer with his hands on his hips, trying to decide what to defrost. Mikey sits at the table with his eyes closed and wonders why the kitchen is the only place in the hotel that doesn’t feel like it’s preparing to attack, peel off his skin with razored claws, slash at his pale belly until his entrails spill through his fingers.

And maybe, maybe even make him like it.

 

+

 

There’s an old fashioned radio in the main office, the only form of external communication other than the phone lines, ancient enough that Mikey doesn’t really know how to use it. Gerard probably would, but the thought doesn’t leave Mikey feeling comforted, although he’s not exactly sure why. He twists a knob, listening to the click as the radio turns on, presses down the tab to hear the static that comes out of the speakers.

“Hello?” he says into the mic, but there’s no answer. 

 

+

 

Mikey dreams –

The door of room 237 opening under his fingers, the barest brush of his fingertips against the wood. The green rug is soft under the soles of his feet, white against the fiber, green upholstered couches, green-shaded lamps, green lights trailing up three steps into the bathroom.

Mikey’s fingers brush against the wall as he walks, as he dreams he walks, and the bathroom is bright, the light reflecting off the mirror and glancing on the drawn shower curtain, pale pale green ceramic tub. The slosh of water is loud in his ears, thick and wet, the sound of movement, and he doesn’t want to pull back the curtain, doesn’t want to see.

Long, white fingers grasp and pull at the fabric, curling with bitten fingernails and – he looks in the mirror, then, and it’s Gerard’s face looking back at him.

 

+

 

He wakes with his hands scrubbing over his face, short nails biting into his skin, and Gerard’s breathing from the bed next to his. He can feel his pulse rabbit-quick against the press of his fingertips, his chest a too-fast rise and fall.

“Gerard?” His voice is softer, even, than it usually is, questioning, but Gerard is asleep, and Gerard couldn’t help him anyway.

“I don’t think I like it here very much,” he says out loud, even though there’s no one to hear it. He wonders, vaguely, if he’ll regret it later.

 

+

 

Gerard leaves the study with charcoal under his fingernails and watercolor paint staining the sleeve of his shirt, pen marks like wide brush strokes all across his fingers and the backs of his hands, but he refuses to let Mikey in or to see any of what he’s done. He shuts the door firmly behind him, pale fingers scrabbling with the lock, left hand white knuckled on the doorknob, full of frenetic energy, eyes too white around the edges, smile too wide. Mikey doesn’t think much of it, but he gives Gerard his space and wonders what he’s doing, locked up in the tiny room by himself.

 

+

 

He’s in the game room the second time he sees them.

The dart board is ancient, antique like everything else in this hotel, and Mikey’s aim is off, hitting the outer rim, if at all. He doesn’t much care, just wishes that he had someone to play pool with, now that Gerard leaves the study for meals and little else. Sometimes not even that, unless Mikey knocks.

The whisper of sound over his shoulder isn’t anything that Mikey can ignore, not in this hotel, but he doesn’t turn fast enough to see anything more than the glimmer of movement in the hallway. Mikey stuffs his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, still clutching three of the six darts, the muscles in his back tightening as he waits.

 _Mikey_ , he hears, the voice curling around the back of his neck, trickling down his spine, and he’s moving out into the hallway without a thought, dropping the darts on the floor and stepping with quiet feet.

 _Come find us, Mikey_ , it says, a whisper. _Come find us._

He doesn’t know where he’s going, his feet bare against the soft carpet, almost completely inaudible. He passes rows of nearly identical doors, all closed and locked tight and holding so many secrets he can’t even being to imagine them all, everything this hotel has seen, reflected in every mirror, soaked into every carpet and bedspread. Moving slow, slow like he’s underwater, pushing through mud and decay. The flicker of motion out of the corner of his eye makes him stop, and he turns, every movement slightly delayed.

 _Look at us,_ the boy says, his lips pressed together, motionless. _We’re right here._ His skin is pale, his dark hair sweeping across one eye and the bridge of his nose, his left hand brushing the palm of the boy next to him, slim and full-lipped. _We’re here, look at us._

“Spencer?” Mikey hears himself speak, but doesn’t remember thinking to, only – Spencer nods and steps closer, one hand raised as if to touch Mikey’s cheek.

 _And you’ll be just like us,_ he says but doesn’t, cold cold fingers brushing over Mikey’s cheekbone and down to his lips. A buzzing starts in Mikey’s ears at the touch, vibrating through his bones, down to his fingertips and back up. Mikey can see Brendon over Spencer’s shoulder, and he’s holding a finger to his lips with a smile, saying _shhhhh, don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt, I promise,_ his voice low and gravelly.

The buzzing turns into a piercing shriek, and Mikey stumbles back, his hands over his ears, but the sound is all in his head, pulsing through him, and there’s nothing he can do but watch Spencer smile and step back, his hand brushing Brendon’s again.

_And you’ll never, ever be alone. Not ever again._

The noise gets louder, knives of broken glass in the backs of his eyelids and under his jaw and –

_there’s blood, blood everywhere, thick and congealed and soaking into the carpet, but he doesn’t know whose blood it is, and it’s all over his hands and his face, coating his tongue and dripping down the back of his throat –_

_he piled them on the bed, hands and legs and shoulder blades, severed fingers and tendons, teeth and nails and hunks of hair, exposed bone and chunks of muscle and he knows that he’s done what needed doing, punishment for bad souls and blasphemers and that they asked for it –_

_gerard’s handwriting across the bottom of the page is smeared in black ink, the drawing fragile as a doll house, all sweeps of watercolor paint and think lines of pen, bold faces stretched in fear and pain, smiles of the half-dead –_

_the thing beneath the water reaches for him with rotting fingers, skin melting from the bone, and it grabs his ankle, fingernails sinking into his leg as it pulls him down –_

_mikey, it says to him, mikey mikey mikey, you stupid little boy, you can’t stop us, you can’t, we’ve been here longer than you and we know – once the snow sets in you’re a goner –_

he wakes up.

Sprawled on the carpet in the middle of the hallway, Mikey stares at the ceiling and wonders at the warmth on his face, spreading. He presses his fingers to his skin and finds wetness. Blood. Blood on his face – his nose is bleeding.

Mikey sits up slowly, tilts his head back, his mind full of the grotesque – severed fingers black with rot, the slosh of a body moving in the water, the cold whiteness of snow on the back of his neck. He cups his hand under his nose, the copper and salt taste of blood in the back of his throat, and he waits for it to stop.

 

+

 

Mikey walks into the bedroom with blood dried in the spaces between his fingers and a tackiness spread across his face. Gerard is, surprisingly, sitting at the round table in their common room, and he looks up when Mikey quietly closes the door. It’s almost like Mikey has interrupted him mid-conversation, but there’s no one else in the room.

“Mikey? What the fuck?” Gerard’s voice trails off; he’s waiting for Mikey to talk. Mikey can tell from his expression that he’s not planning on waiting very long.

“Gee. Chill. I just got a nosebleed, I’m fine.” Mikey leaves out everything else, partially because he doesn’t know where to start, but mostly because he just doesn’t want to talk about it. He’s used to the skeptical looks Gerard sends his way, and he just stuffs his hands in his pockets.

“Really?” Gerard asks.

“No, actually, I got into a fistfight with that other guy who’s living here,” Mikey says, voice mostly deadpan. “Seriously Gee, nosebleed. It stopped; I just have to wash my hands and face.”

Mikey doesn’t look over his shoulder as he heads for the bathroom, but he can feel Gerard still looking at him.

 

+

 

Mikey dreams – 

The ballroom full of people, fringed dresses swirling with movement, ties loosened, jackets left slung on the back of chairs. Waiters in tuxes carrying trays of hors d'oeuvres along with their snooty accents.

“Can I interest you in something to drink?”

He turns and finds himself facing the bar, bartender smiling almost kindly.

“After all,” the man says, “we’re both waiting for the same thing, aren’t we? Your brother, Gerard, if I’m correct? I’m afraid we haven’t been introduced.”

The man smiles, but instead of extending his hand, he brandishes a hatchet, red tipped and worn-handled, bringing it down full force on the wood of the bar. No one even turns to look, and he pulls it out effortlessly, leaving a long gash behind.

“I’m Jon,” the man says, his grin wide and earnest as he raises the hatchet again. “Jon Walker.

 

+

 

Mikey wakes with a gasp – again, and he’s not going to get used to it, he knows he’s not.

((Frankie,)) he sends, still half-asleep and half-startled, concentrating on Frank’s face, the curve of his smile. He shifts until he’s sitting cross-legged on his bed, covers pooled over his hips, back against the wall. His fingers clench at the quilt, worrying it between his hands, nervous movement. ((Frankie, are you there?))

He’s not sure if it’s going to work, not sure at all, but he can see Jon’s kind smile and the red painted blade of the hatchet. Splintered wood and the clink of breaking glass.

((Mikey?)) Frank’s voice is webbed with sleep, humid heat all around him, caught in his throat and pooled against his tongue. ((What is it?))

Mikey holds the memory of Jon in his dream, Spencer and Brendon touching his face, and he says, ((nothing, nothing. Just. Making sure that I can.))

He can feel Frank thinking, can feel the light weight of the cotton sheet over his body, and Frank’s ((oh)) is more thank slightly skeptical. Mikey doesn’t blame him.

((Sorry I woke you up, Frankie,)) he says, and he means it, but he can’t help the relief that rushes through him so strong that Frank can probably feel it.

((Any time,)) Frank says. Mikey hopes that he means it.

 

+

 

It gets colder, and Mikey doesn’t tell Gerard that he’s dreaming. He’s not sure that Gerard would care really, which is – unfair, but not necessarily untrue, and Mikey isn’t one to put a damper on anyone else’s good time, much less his own brother’s.

“I love this place,” Gerard says over breakfast, his mouth full of eggs and defrosted waffles. “Nothing like a big fucking hotel in the middle of fucking nowhere to get the creative juices flowing.” Mikey shrugs and nods and wonders what Gerard is actually painting. “Seriously, what the fuck. I haven’t been this productive since I was still in art school.”

Mikey makes a noise of approval, and Gerard turns back to his breakfast. Mikey sips his coffee, and tried not to think of blood under his fingernails, and how he half thinks Gerard is crazy for wanting to stay even for the rest of the day. Which just proves how far Gerard is willing to go in the name of art.

“Are you ever going to show me?” Mikey asks, mostly unused to secrecy of any kind from Gerard, and uncomfortable with what he’s seen of it in the past.

“You getting nosey on me, Mikes?” Gerard asks, and his voice is lighthearted, but there’s something sharp around the edges that Mikey isn’t used to at all, has never heard from his brother.

“You getting sensitive on me, Gee?” Mikey asks in return, his voice soft, and he can see the flinty sharpness in Gerard fade a little, but he still doesn’t know the origin. Defusing it for now does nothing about later.

“I’ll show you, dipshit, just wait until I’m done. Works in progress are rarely beautiful, let me tell you.”

Mikey knows. He’s seen most of Gerard’s works in progress in the past. He wonders what’s different this time.

 

+

 

Mikey stops in front of room 237, stands motionless, hand extended as if to grasp the cold metal of the door handle. He thinks of the dreams of the body in the bathtub, over and over and over, and it’s always Gerard’s face he sees in the mirror, large eyes and too-wide smile. Always long fingers reaching back to pull the curtain, the slosh of water spilling over the rim to spread on the floor, and hard dread in the pit of his stomach when he wakes up.

Gerard’s face, always Gerard’s face, and it’s the thought of his brother in that room with the thing in the tub that makes his hand grasp the doorknob and turn. 

Locked.

Mikey lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, and feels just a little dumb. Why wouldn’t the door be locked? They all are. They always are.

He lets his hand fall back to his side and moves back down the hall, one glance over his shoulder, just to make sure.

 

+

 

Mikey stares at Gerard all through dinner, tapping his fingers on the table in an unconscious and unusual show of tension. Gerard is just finishing his macaroni and cheese when he finally sighs.

“What the hell, Mikey?” he says, not angrily. Somewhat frustrated, but not in any way that Mikey doesn’t recognize – Mikey wonders how long it’s been since Gerard has been this clear to him.

“Nothing,” Mikey says, and shrugs. Gerard rolls his eyes; Mikey can hear the second sigh that he bites back.

“No, seriously, Mikey. What the hell?” More anger this time. Easily sparked, Mikey thinks.

“Just –” he starts, cutting himself off. “Do me a favor okay?”

“Sure, whatever.” Gerard shrugs, and Mikey wonders if he’s agreeing out of curiosity and the desire to get Mikey off his back more than anything else.

“Don’t go into room 237.”

“Why not?” Gerard asks, tilting his head to the side. Mikey fidgets in his seat, shifting until he can feel his hip crack back into place.

“Just don’t,” is all he says.

 

+

 

The snow starts during the night.

Mikey has been listening the radio all week, offhand and half-aware, as the newscaster tracks the first storm system that season strong enough to make it over the mountains and build, so he’s not really surprised at the heavy fall of snow outside his window.

It doesn’t mean he has to like it.

There are already more than four or five inches on the ground when he wakes up, scrubbing a hand through his hair, grabbing his glasses off the bedside table, and glancing out the window.

“Shit,” he says, out loud, fragments of his spell in the hallway coming back to him, shards of _when the snow falls, mikey_ , and _you think you can stop us?_.

Mikey presses his fingers into his temples at the sudden throb behind his eyes, but it eases after a few moments of complete non-thought, and so Mikey gets up to start the coffee. Gerard is still asleep; Mikey’s not actually sure when he came back, anyway. He’d still been locked up in his study when Mikey turned off the bedside lamp.

While the coffee is percolating, Mikey turns back to the window, the clean fall of pure white outside. He’d always liked snow as a kid. It covered everything up, hiding bodies and memories and voices – real, live static. Outside, in that, for a few moments, he didn’t have to think about anything at all. And even if it was fake cleanliness, fake emptiness, it was better than nothing.

Now Mikey’s not so sure.

 

+

 

The phones stop working sometime after noon.

“It’s fine,” Gerard says around a sandwich. “It’s not like we were using them much anyway.” Mikey fidgets in his seat and shrugs. He can still feel the goose bumps that ran up his arm when he’d put the receiver to his ears and heard nothing at all.

Gerard is humming a cheerful song under his breath, with charcoal outlining his fingernails and a shiver spreads down Mikey’s spine when Gerard smiles at him, razor sharp.

“Besides, Mikey,” Gerard says, “everything important is already in here with us.”

“What do you mean by that?” Mikey asks. He keeps his voice as expressionless as he can, but the tinge of fear is still there, the cold that tingles down to his fingertips when Gerard turns to look at him.

“You’re the psychic one, Mikes, don’t you know already?” And when Gerard laughs, it sounds exactly like it always does, half-giggle and high-pitched, but Mikey is still thinking of Gerard’s cutting smile and the knowing tone of his voice. 

 

+

 

Mikey leaves Gerard in the kitchen, and it feels to him like he’s running, even though his steps are slow and measured, even and equally weighted. It’s still running. 

He stops in the conservatory on the top floor, a room all glass and tile floor, cold from the chill of the windows.

((Frankie,)) he thinks as hard as he can, projecting it loud, ((I think you were right. I think that – I don’t know.))

He presses his fingers to the glass, the outline of his palm in condensation.

((Mikey?)) Frankie’s voice is tinged with Florida-warmth and the beach outside his window, ever-summer and heat. ((What’re you talking about?)) He crackles in and out like static, sometimes indistinct, but _there_ , actually there.

((The phone lines are down,)) Mikey says, ((I’m giving you a ring.))

 

+

 

The night Gerard goes into room 237, Mikey knows it. The dream changes.

There’s a question in his mouth when the door opens under his fingertips, curiosity in the back of his mind like crackles of electricity, and there’s green everywhere. The carpet, the lampshades, the tinge of the wallpaper. His feet are bone pale against the dark of it, bare skin, and his steps are quiet as he closes the door behind him.

The slosh of water, noise in the silence, draws him into the bathroom, slow and tentative. The mirror over the sink shows his face – Gerard’s face – his face, his mouth pressed line thin, skin pale but for the flush of heat just above his cheekbones. The dark eyes that slide down his torso and back up, inspecting. He turns, his fingers on the marble countertop – green, again – when the sound of a body in water, shifting, pulls his attention to the bathtub. 

The silhouette against the shower curtain is all long, thin torso and longer, thinner legs. The fingers that reach to pull the curtain aside are boney, almost awkward in their strength, and he’s not sure what he expects to see. They are the only ones in the hotel – even though – he thought –

The boy standing in the tub is naked, the water running down his chest and legs, fingers still wrapped up in the curtain. He lets go, the hand returning to his side, and he steps closer, out of the tub, feet silent but for the soft sound of water moving across the floor. He doesn’t say anything.

“I don’t –” Gerard starts – Mikey starts – Gerard says. “Who are you?”

The boy just puts a finger to his lips (and Mikey is reminded of Brendon, but Gerard can’t know that, and doesn’t), his steps confident, his face stony and set. His hands are clammy when they grip Gerard’s face.

 _My name’s Ryan,_ the boy says, his voice monotone and expressionless as it slithers through Gerard’s head, _what’s yours?_

But it doesn’t matter, because the boy kisses him with cold lips, fingernails digging into his cheeks. He kisses with his teeth and his tongue, smooth muscled torso pressed against Gerard’s – against his chest, the water on his skin dampening Gerard’s shirt, and (Mikey is thinking _I told you, I told you, I told you not to_ , that it doesn’t matter, not to Gerard, not now if it ever did) Gerard just kisses back, pushes closer, into the boy’s fingers fisted into the back of his shirt, one hand curling up into his hair.

And when Gerard – when Mikey – when he turns to look into the mirror at their bodies pressed together, there’s – 

Blood. Everywhere, blood on the boy’s face from his ruined nose, the cheekbone sunk back into his skull, blood from his smashed lips and the slashes across his bare shoulders, the bruises on his fish-belly pale skin. He starts laughing, laughing, and he says _you, you, you did this to me, kicked until the bones snapped under your boots, held me under just to watch the water turn pink, watch the bubbles wind their way to the top, watch until the struggles stopped. You, you, you._

He clutches at Gerard’s shirt when Gerard tries to pull away, his fingernails broken and cracked, his fingers leaving wispy trails of blood on the cotton. Still laughing, his lips cracked open wide, and he presses his face to Gerard’s neck, and Gerard can feel the sharp point of ruined bone jabbing against his neck, smell the salt and tang of blood on the air, smeared against his skin, and Gerard pushes, pushes as hard as he can, until the boy tumbles over, his head colliding with the edge of the tub, a dull thunk.

The boy just laughs.

 _was it fun?_ he asks, with his crumpled face and his enormous eyes, _was it fun to watch me die?_

 

+

 

Gerard is pushing against Mikey’s shoulder when he wakes, his voice soft in the dark,

“Mikey, Mikey, Mikey,” he’s saying, over and over, “Mikey, Mikey, Mikey.”

“I told you not to,” Mikey says, turning over to stare up into Gerard’s face, what he can make out of it in the dark, indistinct lines, hazy and out of focus without the aid of his glasses. “I fucking told you not to, Gerard.”

And he’s so angry, he can feel it tight in his chest, warmth that spreads down his bones and under his muscles, painting the underside of his skin in heat until he just wants to punch and punch and punch Gerard until he fucking _listens_.

“I know,” Gerard whispers, like he’s contrite, like he’s sorry, but Mikey’s not sure he can believe it. He balls his hands into fists and thinks of them against the hotel, and wonders if that’s even true.

“Fuck you, Gerard,” he says, “for screwing with my head, for taking me here in the first place. Fuck you.”

“You agreed!” Gerard pulls away, his hands balling into fists at his side. “Don’t you even think about blaming me for anything, you fucking agreed, Mikey.”

“Yeah, I did.” Mikey remembers his brother’s face when he walked through the door, and how he hadn’t smelled like alcohol and sweat, how he’d smelled like hope, for the first time in a long time, how he’d moved back onto cigarettes and coffee and how Mikey thought that maybe, maybe this would be a good thing.

But even _with_ his glasses on, Mikey’s not sure he’d recognize his brother’s face, the smell of blood still lingering in the air.

“You have something to say, Mikes?” Gerard says, his voice slicing through Mikey’s mind, taut like wire.

“I love you, Gerard,” Mikey says, and he does. He loves his brother more than anyone else he’s ever met, anyone he’s ever touched, kissed, or talked to. Gerard is his _brother_ , painting on Mikey’s skin while he’s sleeping, falling down on Mikey’s bed, drunk out of his mind and babbling, kissing their mother hello in the morning and stealing her coffee. But. “I can’t stay here. I really, really can’t.”

“Don’t you leave me, Mikey,” Gerard says, his expression almost angry, and Mikey can’t deal with this, so he grabs his glasses off the bedside table and leaves the room.

 

+

 

Mikey keeps walking, just walking, until he finds himself standing outside the gold ballroom.

 _soon, soon, soon,_ a voice whispers behind him, and he whirls to find Brendon standing in the doorway, his fingers wrapped up tight around the handle of an ax.

 _so soon, soon you’ll be here with us,_ says Spencer from Mikey’s left, his face half-obscured by the shadow of his hair, a smile on his face, wide and bright.

 _soon you’ll be here with us forever,_ they say, and Mikey closes his eyes against the pain in his temples, and when he opens them again, he’s not surprised to find both of them gone.

“I’m leaving,” he says to himself, to the hotel, “I am.”

 

+

 

“Gerard?”

The door to the study is slightly ajar. Mikey pushes it open the rest of the way with one hand, but Gerard isn’t inside, just the evidence that he has been in the past – dirty plates and stubs of pencils, trays of watercolors, smudges of colors on the white walls.

As much as Mikey would normally try to respect his brother’s privacy, he can’t help but pull the first sketchbook off the desk in the middle of the room and start flipping through.

At first he’s not sure what he’s seeing. At first he’s not sure that this is so different from anything else his brother has drawn, arm curled protectively around the paper. But it is – it’s different.

Every page is almost exactly the same. Fingers leaving a trail of blood on a white wall as they slide down, legs at odd angels, blood pooling on the floor, and his face. Mikey’s face. Every dead body, every corpse with missing legs or intestines spilling over its fingers, every single one has Mikey’s face. And in Gerard’s messy writing at the bottom, scratched in red and black, redrawn over and over and over on every page, it says –

 _mikeymikeymikey_.

Mikey picks up a second sketchbook, nausea a ball in his stomach, his mouth dry like the ash of Gerard’s cigarettes, and it’s exactly the same. A third. A fourth. Words in blood on the wall next to his slumped form.

“So, Mikes, what do you think?” Gerard’s voice from the doorway, and Mikey whirls around, finds Gerard leaning on the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest. “A work of pure art, am I right?” Gerard smiles, then, moving a step closer, and it looks like the smile Mikey has seen almost every day since he was born. Mikey has to bite his lips to keep himself from vomiting. 

“What is all this shit, Gee?” Mikey asks, uncertainty in his voice more than anger, and Gerard smiles just a little softer.

“It’s my big breakthrough,” Gerard says. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Gee,” Mikey says, and Gerard starts laughing.

“Jon told me you’d try to leave, but I didn’t believe him.” Gerard takes another step closer, and Mikey can’t do anything but lean back against the desk. “I took a few precautions anyway. Can’t hurt to be prepared, am I right?”

Mikey thinks of the snowmobile in the garage, and pushes Gerard out of the way, tearing off down the hall.

“There’s no way I’d let you leave me, Mikey,” Gerard calls from the study, “you’re too goddamned important to me. Too goddamned important.”

 

+

 

((Frankie, Frankie, _Frankie_ ,)) he sends before he can help it, ((shit. Fuck.))

Pieces of engine lying on the floor of the garage, torn wires and discarded caps, whole pipes ripped out to clatter on the floor, and, really, there’s only one person who could have done it. Mikey’s just not sure why he _would_ have.

((Mikey?)) Frankie’s voice is sleep-tinged and sky-high, the sun outside his airplane window, legs curled up onto the seat. A red-eye to somewhere, but Mikey doesn’t care doesn’t care about that right now.

((Frankie –)) he starts, but he doesn’t know what to say, why it would matter. How to finish. Instead he shoves everything at Frankie, the fluid leaking from the front of the car to drip onto the floor, the scattered wires, Gerard’s softly grinning face, and he’s not really sure what he does, just that he can hear Frankie gasp aloud like he’s sitting curled up next to him.

((Look,)) Frankie says, after a moment, and he’s no longer sleepy, but his head is pounding, and Mikey can see that the woman in the seat across from him is looking at him quizzically. ((Look, calm down. I’m on –))

And that’s all Mikey hears.

“Fuck,” Mikey says, standing in the garage with black liquid puddled at his feet.

It’s still snowing.

 

+

 

 _ah, ah, ah,_ Mikey hears, a tsking, and he watches as Jon steps out from behind the snowmobile, a genial smile on his face, _now really, Mikey, it’s not polite to bring other people into the party. I daresay this event is invite only. An exclusive thing, if you catch my drift._

There’s blood trickling down the side of Jon’s face from the ragged hole near his temple, and Mikey can’t do anything but stare at it in fascination.

“Oh, fuck you,” Mikey says, “why couldn’t you just leave us alone?”

 _I didn’t do anything, Mikey, I promise. Just gave your brother a listening ear and a nudge in the right direction. The rest, well, that he came up with all that on his own._ Jon’s smile is so _kind_ , so earnest, that Mikey almost wants to believe him, and he’s sure that Jon has gotten away with far more than he should have for just that reason.

Mikey doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t think that there’s anything left in him; he doesn’t think he has words left.

 _better get a move on, Mikes,_ Jon says gently, _wouldn’t want to get caught out in the cold, would you?_

“Mikey?” It’s Gerard’s voice, soft in the darkness, and Mikey jolts. “Mikey, where are you? Honestly, I just want to talk.”

There’s never been a time before where Mikey hasn’t trusted the honesty in Gerard’s voice.

He wishes that they’d never left home.

 

+

 

“Gee?” Mikey calls out softly, his hands spread open wide on either side of his torso, showing his peaceful intentions. “Gee, you’re starting to scare me.” 

He walks quietly up the steps that lead to the second floor, the floor with their apartment, and there’s no sign of Gerard, not a sound. 

Mikey pauses on the top of the steps without knowing why.

“Gee?” he says again, one hand on the wall and the other by his side, looking down the stairs, the ajar door to Gerard’s study down the hall to the left, the main common room farther to the right.

“Hey, Mikey,” Gerard says, his feet silent-light on the tile floor, stepping out from around the corner. He has paint on his hands, red on his palms, black under his fingernails, and his smile is almost normal. His hair is sticking out in awkward tufts and curls from where he’s been running his fingers through it. “Nice of you to show up.”

“What’s going on, Gerard?” Mikey’s voice is soft; he’s watching warily as Gerard steps closer, his feet nearing the bottom of the steps.

“What do you mean, Mikes?” Gerard’s grin is flawless, and he tucks a lock of hair behind his ear, fidgeting like he always does.

“Why’d you destroy the engine?” Mikey asks, leaning his weight on the fingers pressed against the wall, just slightly. Gerard’s smile curls at the edges, as if Mikey should know better than to ask such a stupid question, and Gerard’s boots hit the edge of the bottom-most step.

“Couldn’t have you leaving, right? You’re not allowed to leave me, Mikey.” Gerard pauses, and Mikey has to restrain himself from taking a step backward, retreating into the hallway. “Why would you want to, anyway? I want to stay here forever. You can, too.” Gerard’s smile is genial and condescending, saying _you want what I want, and I know best_ , but Mikey doesn’t, and Mikey doesn’t think so.

“Gee –” Mikey starts, but Gerard plows through like he never started talking, starting slowly up the stairs.

“I just want to bash your head in, Mikey. Is that really too much to ask? After everything I’ve done for you? Now, really.” Gerard cocks his head to the side and _grins_ , and it’s every smile Gerard has ever given him when he really wants something, every _c’mon, Mikey, please?_ and every _I’d do it for you!_. “It’s all I want. Just a little blood, c’mon. I promise it won’t hurt that much. You won’t feel a thing.”

“Gee – Gerard, what the fuck –” Mikey is backing up, just a little, and Gerard is climbing the stairs. This is Mikey’s _brother_ , this is _Gerard_ , who doesn’t kill spiders and looks away during the gory bits of horror movies.

“Will you stop being so fucking _special_ for one goddamned minute and do this tiny little thing for me, please?” Gerard is almost to the landing, his face suddenly creased with anger, and –

Mikey doesn’t even think about it.

He grabs Gerard by the shoulders, and he _shoves_.

It’s only as Gerard tumbles backward down the stairs that he realizes what it is he’s done.

 

+

 

Mikey’s brain is a swamp of _oh god oh god_ s and _he can’t be dead_ s, as he scrambles down the stairs toward Gerard’s motionless body. Fingers to the side of his neck, one palm flat against his chest, knees hard against the cold floor as he kneels.

“Breathing,” he says aloud, half unconsciously, as he finds Gerard still alive. His head is bleeding onto the floor at a slow trickle, his left leg splayed out at an awkward angle.

Mikey is relieved that Gerard’s not dead. Mikey wishes that he wasn’t.

He bites his lip, wraps his fingers around Gerard’s skinny ankles, and starts dragging.

 

+

 

He locks Gerard in the pantry, the only room in the hotel he can think of with a lock on the outside. He hooks the latch as quickly as he can, listening carefully for sounds on the other side – Gerard moaning as he starts to wake up, shifting, opening his eyes and discovering where he is.

He collapses into a chair in the kitchen and tries to figure out a next step. Any next step.

 _the pantry can’t hold him forever_ , Jon says, smiling from the doorway. _no, I’d say the chances of him staying in there very long are relatively slim._

“Shut the fuck up,” Mikey says.

 _temper temper._ Jon shakes his head, tsks. _after all, we’re going to be seeing an awful lot of each other for a long, long time. Just remember, Mikey, you’re ours._

 

+

 

_– when the snow falls mikey, mikey m’boy, when the snow falls you’re a goner –_

_we have plans for you, and there’s nothing you can do –_

_forever is a long time, but we promise you’ll learn, learn to like it, learn to love us –_  
Mikey jolts awake, pounding in his head, pounding on the door of the pantry, and Gerard is talking, raving, yelling.

“Goddamn it, Mikey, fuck you. Fuck you and your fucking visions, your goddamned special fucking brain. How fucking dare you even _try_ to leave me behind? If you don’t fucking let me out, I swear, I’m going to bash your skull in like an egg.”

Mikey must gasp, some small intake of breath, because Gerard cuts himself off, and when he starts up again, it’s the same voice Mikey known as long as he’s known his own, not the growl, harsh and rough, of only moments before.

“Mikey, I’m sorry; you know I don’t mean it. I think I hit my head. I think I have a concussion, or something, Mikey, please, let me out.”

If Mikey was looking at his face, he’s not sure he could tell the difference – what’s real, what’s not. He grabs a knife from the rack over the stove. He leaves the pantry locked.

 

+

 

((Frankie?)) Mikey’s clutching the knife in his fist, glancing over his shoulder as he closes the door to their apartment, shutting it tight behind him. ((Oh, fuck, Frankie, can you hear me?))

There’s laughing all around him, high-pitched giggles and the trickle of whispering voices.

 _he can’t hear you, Mikey Way. You’re all alone, and your brother’s out of the pantry, and he’s coming for you._ It’s Spencer’s voice, a smile in his tone, and Mikey turns in a slow circle, but he can’t see him.

 _you can stay with us, Mikey, forever. We’ll be good to you, we’ll never leave not, not ever,_ says Brendon, and Mikey imagines him bouncing on the balls of his feet, Spencer’s ear pressed to the closed door. 

_there’s time for one last dance, Mikey. Come to the ballroom and dance with me,_ says Jon, everywhere and nowhere and in Mikey’s head.

There’s nowhere to go, and Mikey is tired of running.

 

+

 

The ballroom is still all gaudy gold and dust, more than a month unused. The knife is heavy in Mikey’s hand, cold, and the ballroom is empty but for him. He doesn’t think it will be for long. He waits.

“Mikey,” Gerard calls, his voice echoing against the bare walls. He stretches out the name until it almost breaks under the pressure. “Mikey, I’m coming for you.”

Mikey tries not to vomit, feels it burning in the back of his throat at the cheerful note in Gerard’s voice, but he swallows it down. Shifts his weight. Keeps silent.

“I’m your brother, Mikey, you should listen to me. I know what’s good for you, you know I do. I always have.” Mikey shakes his head, but no one is watching him. He can hear Gerard’s footsteps, now, coming closer. The sound bounces off the gold walls and reverberates and Mikey clenches his hand around the knife so hard his knuckles start to hurt. He can’t imagine actually hurting Gerard. He doesn’t think he’s able.

“Gee?” he says softly, tentative.

“Right here, Mikey,” Gerard says, wide grin on his face as he turns the corner and stops in the doorway. He’s got a hammer in one hand, swinging it by his side, back and forth and back and forth. “Gonna hurt me?” Gerard is looking at the knife in Mikey’s hand. His grin fades slowly into confusion, tightness in the corner of his eyes and a slight purse to his lips. “Is that what you want, Mikes?” He sounds almost hurt, almost wounded, and Mikey just wants to make that go away; he always has.

“No, Gee, Gee, I wouldn’t.” Mikey is almost sure. Almost.

“What’s the knife for, then, Mikes?” Wariness in his voice, confusion on his face, and Mikey almost drops the knife just out of sheer desire to _believe_ him. But –

“What’s the hammer for, Gee?” Gerard just shakes his head like he doesn’t know what Mikey is talking about.

“I thought – I thought you might be angry, and I just –” Gerard cuts himself off and shrugs, looking at the floor.

“Gee.” Gerard looks up at the soft, decisive note in Mikey’s voice, and Mikey stays still, staring back. “I don’t believe you.”

And the smile that spreads across Gerard’s face belies the hurt.

“Too smart for your own good, kid,” Gerard says, “I guess I should be proud, or something, but really, I’m just kind of looking forward to seeing what your blood looks like against all this gold.” He steps forward before Mikey can even digest the statement, stalking toward Mikey, who stands motionless in the center of the room. He says, “It’s just that I’m so very angry, so angry, Mikey, and do you know what that feels like?” and swings.

Mikey hears the crack without directly connecting it to anything, at first, and then everything is pain. The hammer hits him in the knuckles of his right hand and skids up his arm, taking skin and blood with it. His other hand comes up, instinctively, to press against the pain, and he drops the knife, hears it clatter to the floor and echo. Gerard’s shoulder collides with center of his chest on the follow through, knocking him to the ground, knocking the air out of his lungs. The pain starts in his fingers and blossoms up his arm like an unfolding flower, and his hand is warm and wet where it’s pressed against ripped and ruptured skin.

“How, Gee?” he asks, gasping for breath, one leg twisted awkwardly beneath him, and he means _how could you_ but the words lodge in his throat and stick there. Gerard laughs, and it sounds sharp, cold, furious.

“You’re not asking the right question, Mikey.” Mikey tries to stand, but the second swing hits him in the shoulder blade. He imagines that he hears the creak and crack of bone splintering, but he can’t know for sure and the tingles down his arm, half-pain, dwindle when the whole limb goes numb. He bites his lips to keep from moaning. He ignores it, ignores it, pushes himself to his feet, pushes Gerard away from him, watching him laugh as he stumbles backward.

“Why?” Mikey asks. His voice is angrier than he can ever remember being, and he feels numb all the way down to his toes, but his voice is ice and rage and hurt, cracked at the edges like betrayal.

“Because you’re so goddamned important, Mikey,” Gerard says, his eyes white and wide and lit with the insanity that always made him a genius. A genius.

((–ikey? Can you –))

Mikey puts his hands to his temples, one tacky with his own blood, squeezes his eyes closed against the new pain, and he doesn’t hear Gerard come closer.

The hammer misses his head and grazes his ear, slamming full force into his collarbone.

Mikey’s eyes open wide as he gasps in air, collapsing hard to his knees –

((–‘m almost –))

It scorches across his mind, and the pounding in his head matches the beat in his whole body, and his breath is sobbing in his lungs. He can see Gerard start to pull his hand back again.

Mikey’s kick catches Gerard in the knee. Gerard stumbles, slips to the floor, and. He’s not even thinking anymore, scrabbling across the floor to grab the knife in a hand mostly numb. He faces Gerard, who is slowly getting to his feet, his hands clenched too tight.

“You can’t win, Mikes,” Gerard is saying, “no matter who you call for help, you can’t win. You’ll be dead before he gets here, your little friend, don’t think I don’t know.”

((–me? Mikey, Mikey, Mikey, oh fuck –))

Mikey almost screams with the pain of it, and it’s never hurt before, never _hurt_ , but he can’t help but squeeze his eyes closed, his mouth open and soundless.

“I’m your fucking _brother_ , Gee, fuck, I don’t –” is all he gets out, grits it between his teeth like bits of broken glass.

“Exactly,” Gerard says, and swings.

Mikey’s hand shoots up, trying to push him away, trying to make him go away, _go away_ , but as the wet warmth starts to slide down Mikey’s hand, trickling down his wrist, Mikey remembers.

He’s still holding the knife.

 

+

 

Gerard’s eyes go wide, and he sputters, mouth opening and closing and opening. Mikey thinks _oh, oh,_ his mind curiously blank, devoid of anything even resembling thought. He lets go of the handle and scoots backward on the floor, watching Gerard wrap his fingers around the blade and handle of the knife and try to pull it, try to pull it out of his neck. The blood is running down his fingers and dripping off and the blade is cutting in and –

((Mikey, Mikey, where are you?))

The pain is gone from behind his eyes, and Mikey can feel Frankie’s worry, his nausea, the images in his head of Mikey bleeding all over the floor, but Mikey is watching Gerard.

“Gee,” he says, the voice ripped from his throat, hoarse, and Gerard looks at him. “Gee, I love you, I’m sorry.” Gerard bites into his lips, and he smiles, smiles right at Mikey, like he always did when Mikey brought him coffee, when he opened his door to find Mikey waiting outside, when Mikey curled up in the chair by the window to watch him paint.

Gerard finally manages to pull the knife out, and the blood gushes down his neck and darkens the black of his t-shirt until it gleams in the light. His knees give out, then, and he crumbles to the floor like a broken doll, all his cut strings exposed.

He’s still looking at Mikey when he drops the knife – the clatter of it against the tile makes Mikey jump, but he’s rooted to place. The tiles are cold against his knees, he knows, but he can barely feel it.

Gerard pushes his hands against the hole, pressing, pressing, his chest convulsing up as he gasps for breath. It sounds wet in his lungs, webbed like phlegm in the back of his throat.

Mikey doesn’t know how he crawls over, can’t even feel his own body, he just watches his hands shake as he pushes Gerard’s hair away from his face.

“I love you, Gerard, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I love you, please,” he says, so quiet he can hardly even make it out.

((Mikey? Mikey, tell me where you are. Please, Mikey.))

But Mikey doesn’t want to.

 

+

 

Mikey is curled up on the floor when Frank finds him. With his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them, he’s a small ball in the middle of the massive room, staring out into space.

“Mikey?” Frank’s voice is tentative, more than Mikey has ever heard it, even in his own mind.

Gerard is dead.

Gerard is _dead_. Mikey can’t even bear to close his eyes.

“Mikey,” Frank says, crouching in front of him, brushing his bangs away from his eyes, fingers lightly touching the frames of his glasses. “Speak to me.”

((I didn’t – I don’t –)) he tries, and then he just pushes everything onto Frank, everything, and doesn’t wince when Frank’s face pinches up in pain at the onslaught.

“Oh,” Frank says, finally, “oh.” He pulls Mikey up against him, an arm carefully around his shoulders, moving Mikey until his head is tucked under Frank’s chin, his spine curved up against Frank’s chest. Mikey can feel Frank breathing, can hear Frank’s heartbeat loud against his ear as he presses closer. Alive.

“Frankie,” he says, his voice a whisper in the emptiness.


End file.
